I’m sitting here in sunny, mild Boulder, Colorado typing this, but all over the news and my Facebook page, are reports of the havoc

Hurricane Irene (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

being wreaked on the East Coast by Hurricane Sandy. I remember Hurricane Irene well because it devastated my home state of Vermont with destructive flooding the likes of which the state has never seen, though like now I was experiencing it from afar. And now, Sandy is bearing down on even more of the country, spreading out from New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and even reaching Ohio. And apparently it’s much, much stronger than Irene.

According to the reports I’ve been reading on Facebook, there are predictions that thousands of folks could be without power for a week or more. I cannot even imagine how challenging, not to mention miserable, that would be. In fact, last winter during a huge snowstorm, we lost power for a full 24 hours and it was rough. We had no heat, no lights and no connection with the world except for our cell phones. I kept going to do things like make toast–ooops, the toaster needs electricity, or vacuum the rug–oops again, or check the weather forecast on the computer—acckkk! I felt like everything I tried to do was dependent on electricity and technology and while that makes likes extremely convenient when it’s working, it makes life extra hard when it’s not.

When we lost power we were using cloth diapers and I had plenty clean to get us through the mere 24 hour power outage. But now I’m wondering how so many parents of little ones are going to survive being without modern conveniences for up to a whole week. Sure, Grandma used to wash cloth diapers by hand in a big old washtub full of hot water back in the old days…but can you even get hot water in a storm? I know plenty of people who stocked up on bottled water, canned foods and filled their tubs with water just in case. But were they planning on washing their diapers too?

Believe me, I know that surviving a storm (and I don’t mean just physically surviving, I mean surviving with your sanity intact) is MUCH more challenging for those with one or more mobile, chattering, climbing and crying little ones to care for and entertain than for say, a young and still childless couple enjoying nature’s drama while sipping wine by a roaring fire and snuggling under blankets. Many of you are probably preparing cold meals for warmly bundled children who are either scared of the wind and rain, or just tired of being cooped up with no cartoons for an hour or two of entertainment. I’ve been there, though thankfully, it wasn’t for very long.

So as I sit here thinking of all of you and all of my friends and family hunkering down and waiting out the storm, I’m hoping you’ll have some survival stories to share. Did you use your cloth diapers knowing you may be stuck hand-washing in cold water? Did you buy disposables just in case? And how did you pass the time with your little ones? I hope you are all safe and sound and staying dry. Move on Hurricane Sandy, move on already!

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Elizabeth is a stay-at-home mother of three children, ages eight, six and three years. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband, children, a dog and two cats. In her (very limited) spare time she likes to garden, hike, read mysteries and write. She has written three books for children and is usually covered in paint splatters.
http://eamckenzie5.wix.com/thespunkybookworm

I was just wondering about families with babies and how they were coping with the aftermath of Sandy! Thank you for sharing your perspective! I guess, if it were me, I’d probably just try to clean as best as I could with cold, but if needs be, luckily we live in the country and could use our fire pit for heating/washing/cooking, etc!

Comment by Sarah Wagner on November 5, 2012 at 11:00 am

I can’t imagine not having my washing machine !

Comment by Samantha staffier on November 5, 2012 at 11:03 am

I know the hot water in our old house didn’t work when the power went out because despite the fact that it was (tankless) gas, the thermostat ran on electricity. It wouldn’t work without the thermostat. DOH! I probably would have bought some disposables just in case, or at least some disposable inserts I could use and hand wash the covers. Haven’t been in this house long enough to know if the hot water works here when the power is out.

Comment by Emily on November 5, 2012 at 11:05 am

I am a huge fan of CD, but if I was to face circumstances like that, I would make sure to have a stash of disposables. After all, the idea is not to never ever use the convenience of disposables, but to have them for a real emergency. I think this justifies the trash output.

I live in Pennsylvania but about an hour away from ohio and was hardly affected by the hurricane we just got a bad storm and some snow. My parents however live near Philly and they lost power for two days and school has been out for about a week now. And I was actually staying at my parents house for a whole week and left the Sunday hurricane sandy was about to hit. I cloth diaper my two month old baby boy and I hand was all his diapers, however I use a lot of hot water. I wouldn’t feel like my diapers would be clean enough with out hot water and if I needed to I would use disposables until electricity was back.

Comment by Angela Noullet on November 5, 2012 at 12:08 pm

I live on Long Island and lost power for 46 hours. I am cloth diapering my 5 1/2 month old twins and continued to do so during the outage. I washed diapers Monday morning, ahead of the storm, and had a full stock of 48 prefolds, 14 covers, and 10 AIOs to get us through. We were very lucky and had only just started on the AIOs when power returned (and I quickly got the diapers in the wash). We do have emergency disposables because my husband insists on keeping them around, and we would have used those if we ran out of cloth. Washing diapers by hand would have been possible (gas stove means I can boil water) but with the cold & lack of much sun, they would have taken a LONG time to dry!

fearing losing power in PA, i did laundry every moment i could while we still had power. i ended up not losing power, but if it had gone out for longer than a day and a half, i would have switched to disposables

Comment by Elisia on November 5, 2012 at 3:10 pm

Not that I would have the memory to rightfully do so, but I try to think back to the days when bathtubs were filled with water heated on a stove, or over the fire. If one has the french style hearth, they might be able to boil a pot of water over a fire, or utilizing propane, one could also boil water which would then be used to clean.

Sometimes our modern marvels do us more harm than good when reliance upon them becomes so heavy that we can hardly do without. The affects of lobbying comes into light when such unexpected outages spread, and certain laws like ‘no burn days’ here in California would legally limit use of such a fire. Go figure!

Comment by Michael Cornett on November 5, 2012 at 3:12 pm

love thirsties

Comment by crystal small on November 5, 2012 at 3:15 pm

While I do not CD yet, this would be a huge fear of mine! I agree with always having a stash of disposables.

Comment by Natalie on November 5, 2012 at 3:16 pm

Wow, I hadn’t thought about this particular issue associated with power outages! I think one would have to switch to sposies in the absence of hot water!

Comment by Ellie Seligmann on November 5, 2012 at 3:36 pm

We just recently switched to cd and as we were preparing for the storm was debating this very question. I decided to wash all the diapers and was prepared to use disposables if the power went out. Thankfully, we only had lots of rain and wind but no damage. Prayers to all those up north that lost so much!

Comment by Michele Mitcheltree on November 5, 2012 at 5:01 pm

Yes, I think I would have done disposables, too. And hopefully I wouldn’t end up with a pail full of dirties when the power went out for a week! I suppose in that case, I’d just have to rinse as well as I could by hand.

Comment by Stephanie on November 5, 2012 at 8:19 pm

This is a great reminder for me. I live in Hurricane prone Texas and have emergency plans reviewed each summer. Now with my new baby I need to really take time to have an emergency kit just for the baby. I really don’t think that my cloth diapering regimen would have come across my mind to plan around so thank you!

Comment by Joy on November 5, 2012 at 8:30 pm

I would be sure to ditch the CDs as soon as the storm hit. I would probably use my prefolds for something else pronto. I love my cloth diapers but I just couldn’t deal with that and all the other stress

Comment by Horse girl on November 5, 2012 at 10:29 pm

It would/will be a hard decision for me. We are planning baby #2 and recently moved into a house on a street that is known for easily loosing power a few times a winter for easily a week. We have a generator but it doesn’t run the washing machine.

The last storm we were only out for 26 hours, and my son only wears one at night so we were fine. We read a lot of stories. I would also recommend getting wind up flashlights/lanterns from an outdoor stores. Great “toy” that doesn’t waste batteries, and a wind actually does last a reasonable amount of time.

I have read posting on how to wash prefolds in the bathtub — which i might consider since we will post prefold diaper.

In the end we would probably use gDiaper inserts in covers. It is what we did when traveling for my son so it wouldn’t be a stretch to keep some on hand for winter storms.

Comment by Sierra on November 6, 2012 at 11:14 am

i’d probably opt for disposable inserts, like grovia. they fit in all kinds of covers. when will those be available by thirsties? and don’t forget to add the gussets.

Comment by sus vandil on November 7, 2012 at 3:18 am

I always try to have disposables on hand in case of an emergency. I just think that’s the easiest thing to do!

Comment by Dandi D on November 7, 2012 at 9:16 am

We bought disposables to get us through. Thankfully we fared well with the storm so we are back to our cloth.

Comment by Amy E on November 8, 2012 at 11:31 am

Great post! We do rely way to much on technology. We should keep ourselves versed in how to do without modern conveniences.

Comment by Sonya on November 8, 2012 at 11:44 am

I was without power for 2 1/2 days after an ice storm last winter, and I switched from cloth diapers to disposables after about 1 1/2 days not because I was out of clean cloth diapers but because it was in the low 50s in the house (probably colder on his changing table) and I could leave my then 6-month-old in a disposable for a longer period and avoid exposing his naked butt to the 50 degree temps.

A few years before that, I was out of power for 5 1/2 days after a big wind storm. No baby then, but still a miserable experience when the outside temps are well below freezing so it’s a lot of work just to keep the inside temp next to the fire in the 50s.

Comment by SarahD on November 8, 2012 at 1:05 pm

I think that I would use Disposables in that situation. It would be hard to stomach, but you could wash them by hand with cold water, but our water pump is electric, so we would not have any water.

Comment by Meredith on November 8, 2012 at 1:45 pm

When Sandy was heading our way I made sure to wash everything that was dirty so we’d have cloth for as long as possible. If we’d lost 48*power for more than 5 days, I would have had to get disposables at that point.

Comment by Melanie on November 8, 2012 at 2:21 pm

The hurricane has caused me to think a bit about things I should store in case of emergencies like these. If we lost power for more than a couple of days, we would lose a huge chunk of our food because I store a lot of things in our chest freezer. Fortunately we do have some charcoal so that I could cook some meat on the community grill if needed. However, I don’t currently have a lot of disposable diapers on hand since we only use disposables at night. I should probably keep at least one extra package per child just in case.

Comment by Marcelaine on November 8, 2012 at 2:21 pm

Cloth diapering is so new to me, I would probably just try to buy disposables. It would not be fun without power and water.

Comment by Jodie on November 8, 2012 at 2:26 pm

You definitely pose an interesting question that I’m not positive how I’d react to. I suppose I probably would pull out some disposables to use or maybe, as another commenter mentioned, get some disposable insert style diapers. So that solves that issue, but what about the dirty CD that haven’t been cleaned yet? You can’t just leave it for a week or longer. I’m sure there are going to be some people with ruined dipes!

Comment by Jessica Stevens on November 8, 2012 at 3:35 pm

I don’t live in hurricane country, but I do live in earthquake country. If we had one big enough to cut our power for an extended period, I’d switch to disposables. Natural disasters are enough to deal with without laundry!

Comment by Aryn Kennedy on November 8, 2012 at 5:07 pm

we sadly used disposables for a few days … i despise them & all the garbage they create but i was really worried about getting stuck with no power and having nasty diapers mold and have to be thrown away :/ we were soooo glad to get back to CDs though! :]

Comment by Mallory on November 8, 2012 at 7:03 pm

I live in WNY and when I heard there was a storm coming I did all my diaper laundry right before the storm hit so that if we did lose power I would hopefully have enough diapers to get by… But my back up plan was to buy some sposies because the thought of handwashing scared me lol.

Comment by Bekah Kuczenski on November 8, 2012 at 7:50 pm

I’m from PA and I made sure I had enough disposables on hand just in case. Fortunately, I didn’t need them – we never lost power. Praying for all those that weren’t so fortunate…

Comment by Traci on November 8, 2012 at 8:49 pm

We were without electric for a week. No laundry got done and we lost a refrigerator full of food. You never realize how dependent you are on things until they are no more. Definitely makes you rethink priorities and come up with creative ways to get things done.

Comment by Jessica on November 9, 2012 at 8:08 am

Thankfully we were not affected by the storm, but we had family and friends who were. Thankfully they are all ok. Having just started cloth diapering, this storm made me think of what I would do in this situation. We don’t live where we would be in danger of a hurricane, but we do get some pretty bad storms and sometimes we do loose power. To be prepared, I think I will stock up on some flats – they would dry the quickest. To wash them, we have a wood stove that I could heat water on. Sure it would be a lot of work, but we could turn it into an adventure! As a last resort, I would also have some disposables around, just in case.

Comment by Carrie C on November 9, 2012 at 12:11 pm

Last year during Irene our power went out for days. I was so glad I had bought a pack of disposables just in case because it was out longer than expected.

Comment by Amber Lawrence-Whitted on November 9, 2012 at 4:32 pm

During a power outage I would stop using pockets (which I love) and use the OS covers that we started out with when we first brought him home…along with disposable inserts.

Comment by Nancy on November 9, 2012 at 10:50 pm

We thankfully didn’t lose power during Sandy, but we do keep a stash of disposables on hand, so I’d probably use those instead of my cloth if I knew we’d be out of electricity for a while.

I’m aware that this is an old post but I felt compelled to add my two cents. I was trapped for over 4 days with my six month old son without electricity during a nasty snow storm. We were using disposables at the time but had I been cloth diapering, I would’ve thrown the diapers in the machine and heated water on top of the kerosene heater to hand wash with. We used it to cook things like soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. It smelled awful in the house, but it worked. We turned the heater down at night to conserve kerosene and managed to make it through. We had no 4 wheel drive and couldn’t leave our home. We played scrabble by candle light and listened to an old old battery powered radio for any news about road conditions. It might be tough but if water is available, it’s totally doable.

Comment by Chessie on December 31, 2012 at 8:13 am

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